I enjoyed the new space show at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York City this week. Narrated by actor Pedro Pascal, Encounters in the Milky Way takes viewers on a mesmerising journey through our galactic neighbourhood.
The show does a great job of illustrating just how dynamic and chock-full of stuff our galaxy is. For instance, of course I knew that Earth orbits the sun, but I hadn’t appreciated that everything – our sun, its stellar neighbours – is in constant motion, zooming around the centre of the Milky Way.
In one captivating sequence, visualised above, I learned that a star system called Gliese 710 is due to pass through the Oort cloud, a vast area of icy objects surrounding our solar system, in about 1.3 million years. The two star systems will swap comets and send others hurtling out into space in what looks to be a spectacular show.
I’m just bummed that I will miss it.
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